Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
She also hoped it would prevent him from having his mistress present when she arrived.
Her stomach flipped at the thought of the woman’s name: Miss Martha Devereaux. Why had Jane felt the need to tell her about her?
As Patrick pulled his carriage down the mews lane behind Thornton House, she swallowed the urge to call for her driver to turn around.
If not for Isabel’s dire situation, she would not have come at all.
Visiting an unmarried man’s home this time of night, alone, in such a manner was precarious.
If anyone were to learn of it, their false, short-term courtship would not be able to end as planned.
Not without disastrous consequences for her.
Cassie squared her shoulders and, grateful for the pitiful lamplight in the mews, slipped up to Grant’s tradesmen’s entrance. After a single knock, the door opened, and she was looking up into the physician’s face. A single candle illuminated his expression of censure.
“You are asking for trouble by coming here, Cassie.” He took her arm and pulled her inside swiftly before shutting and locking the door. They stood in a small vestibule off the kitchen.
“I assumed your servants would be abed by this hour,” she said, inhaling the air between them, trying to trace any lingering scent of perfume. The more she thought about his keeping a mistress while they were pretending to court, the more it began to rankle.
“They are,” he said. The single taper in its holder was the only light in the kitchen beyond the vestibule. “But you may have been seen, or your carriage could be spotted in the mews.”
“I’m having Patrick drive around. He’s going to keep checking the lane, and I said we’d place a candle on the step outside when he’s to come back.”
The plan did little to assuage Grant’s discontent.
But he turned and began to lead her through the kitchen without a word.
His anger over her presence was slightly insulting.
The risk of being found with her here was no less severe than when they’d been huddled together in Lady Dutton’s closet.
His aversion to having to marry her was likely causing his sour attitude.
“Have I interrupted your evening?” she snapped as she followed him through a door and a short set of stairs, into a corridor.
She’d been in his home once before, shortly after Hugh and Audrey had uncovered a debased secret society near Vauxhall where a few women had been killed.
Grant had been with them, and he’d been beaten badly, a few of his fingers broken.
He’d endured torture rather than give up the location of his friend.
Cassie had seen then his loyalty, and it had impressed her.
She and Audrey had come to visit him, to be sure he was recovering.
But in true Grant fashion, he’d brushed off the injuries with humor.
Though now, he didn’t show a single drop of humor.
He pushed through a pair of doors, and Cassie followed him into a room similar to his Church Street surgery.
“Yes, in fact, you have,” he answered.
He stalked through his home surgery and rolled open another pair of doors, these leading to a study. Annoyance rippled off him in waves as he went directly to a decanter on his desk and poured.
Coming here had been a mistake. With a sinking stomach, Cassie stood in between the surgery and the study.
Firelight lit the masculine space. She could easily imagine him entertaining a woman on the wide leather Chesterfield before the fire.
With that image in mind, the study seemed more like a den of sin.
“Your mistress had to leave early, I take it?”
He stilled the decanter.
“If I am not permitted to see other suitors, then I think it only fair you should not see Miss Devereaux.”
Grant looked over his shoulder at her. He made no reply and went back to pouring. He filled a second glass, presumably for her.
“You won’t deny she is your mistress?” Cassie pressed.
“I won’t.” Grant came back toward her and extended the drink. “How do you know of her?”
She stared at the glass but didn’t take it. Couldn’t look at him as a whistling sound filled her ears. “Jane. She said you frequent a sporting club on Bond Street where… Is that where you were coming from the other afternoon when I saw you?”
He lowered the drink. “I box at Gentleman Jack’s, which is also on Bond Street, and had just left there when I saw you.
” Before she could start to feel miniscule for having asked such a question, he added, “But Mrs. Riverton is not wrong. The club is called the Fallen Arch. I have met Miss Devereaux there in the past.”
Her fingernails bit into her palms as she clenched them.
“However,” he went on. “I have not partaken in Miss Devereaux’s special attentions since our deal was struck. Nor any other woman’s if that is what has you all twisted up in knots.”
Her fingers relaxed, her nails likely having left indentations. “I’m not twisted up.” She grabbed the drink from his hand, perturbed with herself. And a little injured. He didn’t want her here. He was downright angered by it.
“Give me your candle. I’ll place it outside for Patrick.” She held out her other hand, waiting for it.
“You are not leaving,” he said. “Not until you tell me what was so bloody important that you’d risk coming here.”
“You came to my study through my tradesmen’s entrance,” she reminded him.
“That was different.”
“How so?”
Grant sipped his drink, his eyes not leaving hers. “You had the safety of your staff on hand. A lady’s maid who knew I was there and who stood just outside the door. There is no one here now to protect you from me.”
A quiver of apprehension went through her. “Do I require protection from you?”
The question sounded far more suggestive than she’d intended. Grant didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took the time to sip his drink again. The corner of his mouth twitched, and the dimple in his cheek showed itself.
“Maybe,” he said, but his grin assured her he wasn’t serious. “Sit, Cassie. Tell me why you’ve come.”
She broke free from his penetrating gaze and went to the leather Chesterfield, adjacent to the hearth.
A fire leaped in the grate, lighting the cut crystal glass in her hand as her fingers traced the chiseled edges.
“Elyse and I went to the clinic and spoke to Isabel.” She perched on the sofa.
“The man’s name is Mr. Youngdale, not Young.
She told us what happened and… Grant, it’s just awful. ”
Cassie described what had been revealed about her aunt Lydia and Mr. Youngdale and also about the suspicious death of his first wife.
“She doesn’t believe it was an accident,” she explained. “He’s threatened her, and she’s frightened that he means to keep the baby once its born but dispose of her.”
Grant scowled into the fire. “Youngdale,” he murmured. Then, he set his glass on the hearth mantel and went to his desk. He pulled open a drawer and extracted a thick text.
“What is that?” Cassie asked.
“My copy of Debrett’s. It should have something on the Youngdale baronetcy.”
He brought the guide to the Chesterfield and took the cushion beside hers.
As he opened the book and began to flip through, she considered that this was not at all the image of Grant entertaining a woman on said sofa that she’d had just moments ago.
Some of the tension left her back. Cassie couldn’t account for it.
She shouldn’t be at ease, not while she sat here, alone in his home with him at so late an hour.
But his concern for Isabel was evident as he turned pages.
He would help the young woman. So many others would never have lifted a finger to give aid, but he would.
Even if he was upset with Cassie for being there.
“Why do you keep a guide to the peerage in your desk drawer?” she asked.
“I like to know a little about my patients before I attend them,” he replied while turning pages.
“Plus, I’m incurably nosey. Ah. Here we are.
” He stopped flipping and put a finger to the page.
“Mister Gregory Youngdale. Third son of Sir David Youngdale, deceased and succeeded by his eldest son. Child number three, Gregory, is nearly forty years of age, according to the birth date listed for him. This is the 1818 edition, so a few years old now, but it looks like the wife, Mrs. Alicia Youngdale was still alive when this guide was published. Married in 1815.” He closed the book and tossed it aside.
“There’s nothing more than that. Officially, Youngdale is not a peer, so he wouldn’t be part of any upper-class society, at least none that I know of. ”
“The demimonde then?” Cassie suggested.
Grant leaned against the Chesterfield’s back cushion, his arms folding over his chest. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, or a cravat.
Just his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, the latter of which he’d likely only kept on because he knew to expect her.
Otherwise, by this time of night he’d have been in a state of dishabille.
The image that flared in her mind wasn’t ladylike.
It was slightly alarming, in fact, especially when her attention drifted toward his unbuttoned collar, open to reveal the smooth skin of his throat.
Thankfully, Grant didn’t see her perusal.
He was staring straight ahead, brows pressed low.
“Perhaps. I’ll ask a few friends if they’ve heard anything about him.” He shifted his gaze to her. “A part of me is relieved he’s not as connected as a peer, but that also means his actions can go overlooked more easily than someone of more significance.”
It was a good point. Anything could happen behind a closed door when no one cared enough to look.
“We must help her,” Cassie said.
Grant sighed heavily. “I’m not sure what more we can do. Isabel can’t be forced to marry him, but once the baby is born, if he is the father, he’ll have a right to his child.”